


Pieces of a Warrior-King

by DragonTail



Series: Transformers: Cybertron [6]
Category: Transformers (Unicron Trilogy), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One, Transformers: Cybertron
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-03
Updated: 2012-12-03
Packaged: 2017-11-20 04:45:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/581447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonTail/pseuds/DragonTail
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The founder of the Decepticon movement and Supreme Commander of its army, the architect of peace through tyranny, the Emperor of Destruction and the future ruler of Cybertron is alone with his thoughts... or is he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pieces of a Warrior-King

Once upon a time, there was a tank who believed he could be something more.

The tank’s desires were not born of ego. Indeed, the tank was already, in many ways, more than any of his brethren could hope to be. He was a tactician without peer, a fearless and feared soldier. A finely engineered, transformable robot charged with defending his people and his realm from the jealous masses.

And there _were_ jealous masses, keenly hidden from the flock by the tank’s cleverness. Cybertron, the tank’s beloved home world, was under constant threat from a malevolent force. A race of technorganic, five-headed industrialists sought to claim the glittering jewel of a planet for itself. Yet the beings were defeated, time and again, by the tank and his troops, all without a single innocent fretting a circuit board. The populace knew nothing of the threats, nor the tank’s heroism and dauntless defence.

There came a time, however, when the flawless execution of his duty was not enough for the tank. When he tired of being a mere piece of the whole. It annoyed him to risk his existence, vorn after vorn, for thousands of life forms ignorant of his battles. He petitioned the keepers of the realm, the High Council of Iacon, to publicly congratulate their brave soldiers. He asked his ruler, Sentinel Prime, to acknowledge his fine work.

But the council refused, fearing word of the invaders and their sadistic goals would frighten a race of beings who had never known war. Sentinel Prime – bearer of the Matrix of Leadership, the sacred artefact given to the leader of the Transformers – said the innocent needed protection in processor as well as chassis.

Instead, he made the tank a general, leader of their forces, as a reward for his service. Now a commander, a veritable warrior-king, the tank was satisfied. But only somewhat… despite his reward, he remained but a piece of the larger army. Something deep within his Spark told him he had a destiny to fulfil – a grander purpose than that of a mere defender.

_Why… am I thinking this?_

After each victory he spoke with the council, again seeking public recognition for himself and his forces. Time and again he was refused. The public, it seemed, would never be ready to know the truth. Sentinel Prime, it seemed, wanted the glory to himself.

Frustrated, the tank stopped listening to the council. Unbeknownst to all, he came upon a plan to win his proper acclaim.

When he learned of a new invasion threat, the tank made no attempt to stop it. No pre-emptive strike or commando raid. The tank withdrew from the army… vanished… and allowed the five-faced invaders to land on Cybertron’s gleaming metal surface.

The resultant carnage was catastrophic. Wave after wave of cruel, savage beasts with rows of razor-sharp teeth assaulted the cities and shredded the army. Their goal of the five-faced beings was to turn Cybertron into a factory, a planet-sized robot assembly line. Their products, together with Cybertron’s natives, would be sold to the highest bidders around the cosmos. Cheap, replaceable slave labour. Pieces of their overall empire.

When all hope seemed lost, when society had fallen, when the innocent masses had been herded into slave camps… the tank returned.

He was no longer a tank, though. His time away from the front lines had been well spent. He was no mere soldier, a being with a brain wired only for combat! He was a _genius_ who had learned the secret of _reformatting_ … and so turned himself into a mighty airborne dreadnought.

The painful transformations, the torturous twisting of his living metal body, were all worthwhile. He took to the skies, this genius warrior-king, and rained utter annihilation down onto the five-faced invaders. Tentacles flailing, they scurried away from his obliterating shoulder cannons. Teeth breaking, they were dashed against his mighty armour. Faces etched with terror, they fled from the mighty airborne dreadnought and his revitalised army.

And when he broke down the slave camp doors with his own arms… when he ripped apart the cages with his own hands… when his feet trampled the last of the factories and machinery… the robots of Cybertron at last knew the name of its saviour. They finally knew _my_ name.

Megatron.

One simple little incident, millions of years ago, and yet it revealed so much to me. In a moment my course was set – the destiny I’d long sensed was laid out before me. By ignoring the council’s rules and seeking my own path, I had evolved into something far greater. A tank had become an aircraft – powers and abilities previously denied me had been seized through initiative.

_Yet if I am so powerful, why can I not raise my arm? Why does it resist me? Why is it to hard to focus on the present?_

In secret, four others rallied to my cause. We kept our own counsel and yet shared the one truth. For whatever reason, the council sought to keep us in the dark about our true natures, about what we could be if given the reigns of control. Ergo, it was time to seize those reigns for ourselves… by force.

Our goal was simple. We would take command of Cybertron and transform the planet itself. My beloved world would become, as I had, a dreadnought. A War World, bristling with weaponry. It would sail through the galaxy on the four ancient engines I had discovered, deep beneath the surface, during my “disappearance”. We would be at last free of our enemies… because we would seek them out and exterminate them.

We five ceased to be Cybertronians and became Decepticons – so named for the vorns of deception perpetrated by the counsel. As time passed we sought to increase our numbers… Grimlock, Scavenger, others. Yet when the moment came, when we announced our presence to our world, we could rely only on ourselves.

Megatron. Starscream. Shockblast. Soundwave. Thundercracker. We were an army of five that wiped out a platoon. We were a union of righteous rage that murdered Sentinel Prime and decimated society’s precious rules. We gathered an army around us, becoming a force of nature that razed Nova Cronum and slaughtered its silly philosophers.

I remember ordering Thundercracker to stay his hand and spare one of the weaklings at Nova Cronum. “A survivor,” I told him, “can give voice to a legend.” 

_Force of nature… legend… and yet I cannot move my legs. I sit here in my throne, in my command centre. My gaze perceives my surroundings and yet I cannot move my optics. Why?_

The Decepticons were the new ruling class… or so we believed. Somehow, the Matrix of Leadership – final recognition of my rule and fuel for my master plan – slipped through my fingers and made its way to a new fool. That damnable Optimus Prime – an untested and inexperienced leader. Nonetheless, he carried the Matrix within his chest, robbing me of my rightful station.

Though raw, he was obviously inspirational, for he inspired the feeble weaklings and raised an army against me. After Prime’s victory in the Imperial Amphitheatre, his surprisingly cold-oiled slaughter of some of my best troops, the tide of was shifted. Though still weak and foolish, his “Autobots” managed to turn back my advance.

Around this time came the first murmurs of dissention. Starscream, most of all, spoke with a voice of rebellion. Oh, he _sounded_ loyal with his platitudes of “Mighty Megatron” or “Fearless Leader”. But every syllable of dripped with scorn. “Decepticons attack, Decepticons retreat”, I heard him mimic after the fiasco at Tyrest. Others began to support with him, to laugh openly alongside my ambitious aerospace commander. Were I to keep the piece of power I had so rightly earned, I would have to act.

Soundwave once asked me: “How do you win a stalemated war?” My answer, as simple then as today, was: “Find an advantage.” It became a mantra for my soldiers, many of whom followed my lead and reformatted into sleeker, deadlier war machines. Because the pathetic Autobots followed suit the conflict escalated instead of concluding. Though I controlled access to the engines, they remained beyond my abilities to refurbish and power. My dreams of a War World seemed ever further away from becoming reality.

Ironically, it was in the weakest denizens of our world that I was to find a solution. The Mini-Cons… the sub-tribe of Cybertronian worker mechs… had within them mysterious reservoirs of energy. Though tiny, each was a potent well of resources just waiting to be tapped. As I reformatted myself so, too, did I reformat them. Through their pain and suffering, they were bound to our mighty Decepticon bodies as batteries and boosters… as enhancements.

_Enhanced by the power of others, and yet I cannot turn my head. My mind seems unable to do more than run through my databanks. What madness is this?_

For myself, I kept one of the more powerful of boosters – the Mini-Con called Clench, who serves me to this day. Thanks to him and his peers, the balance of power tipped in our favour – especially when the few free Mini-Cons fled the planet. The loss irked me, for among those 18 were the three super weapons – the Star Sabre, the Skyboom Shield and the Requiem Blaster – as well as two highly potent energy reservoirs named Sparkplug and Perceptor.

In the end, their loss mattered not. Outgunned, Prime’s forces fell back. We marched on a road of wrecks to the gates of Iacon, and laid siege to the golden city. The Autobots held the line but lost all other ground. Using passageways and tunnels, they continued a guerrilla action for millions of years but gained little. My siege remained in place that entire time, waiting for their ranks to be depleted so I could strike the killing blow. One final assault to raze their precious city and, at last, take the Matrix for myself. The final piece needed to be a true warrior-king.

_History, ancient history… why can I not stop thinking about it? And why can I not stand?_

I engaged Prime in final combat atop the city’s tallest spire. I told him it was over, that I’d have waited an eternity to crush his Spark, that his death guaranteed my future. The limitless reserves of the Matrix would power Cybertron’s engines as the Mini-Cons powered the Decepticons, and the expanse of creation would fall before me.

Prime swore he would fight on. I laughed and pressed my fingers deep into his face, relishing every inch of denting metal. So consumed was I by the task that I failed to notice the bolt of energy hurtling through the skies – a fireball that crashed between us. It was a distress signal from the missing Mini-Cons. They now cried out for rescue, more than 480,000 vorns after they had fled.

I was only too happy to oblige.

Accompanied by a small force – Starscream, Demolishor, Scorponok and Wheeljack – I left the siege and followed the beacon to a small, carbon-based world many parsecs from Cybertron. It was a disgusting organic globe of puny, fleshy natives and sickening plant-based life forms. As expected, Prime followed and the war continued on “Earth” while we hunted the Mini-Cons.

This time, Prime found the advantage. As nonsensical as it first seemed, his alliance with the human called Kicker was of great tactical benefit. The human had found the lost Mini-Cons in the first place, generating the beacon. That gave him kinship with Perceptor and the other stupid little mechanoids… and something else besides. He displayed an uncanny ability to locate deposits of Energon – the basic fuel for Transformers – hidden on Earth, a talent that should have been far beyond any fleshling. Kicker was an essential piece I failed to possess.

For half a vorn, the two sides battled on that pitiful little world. Yet, even when Sideways turned on Prime and bolstered our ranks, we Decepticons were no match for the Autobots. They had the Mini-Cons, they had Energon, their had a local’s knowledge of the terrain and battlefields. Some of them could even _combine_ with another to form more powerful soldiers! We recovered the Star Sabre, yet they controlled the Skyboom Shield and the Requiem Blaster. For the first time in nine million years the Decepticons… _fell back_. Oh, how it disgusts me to admit that.

_Then why are you admitting it? Have you no control over your own mouth, Megatron? Is the same force that binds your limbs emptying your memories? Fight it, you fool… fight!_

We fell back, but only to a position of strength. We repaired the Mini-Con vessel and took to the stars, targeting a potent energy weapon at the miserable mudball of Earth. It was a truly beautiful creation, powered by the Star Sabre itself. One direct hit would vaporise its atmosphere and suffocate every last mouth-breathing carbon-based life form. Though denied, I would at least be revenged.

The attack failed.

Proving stupidity was among his many personality traits, Optimus Prime rocketed into space and placed himself between the cannon and the Earth. There, he unleashed the power of the Matrix and blocked the weapon’s blast, saving the planet but disintegrating in the process. An unintended victory and yet I claimed it, relishing the satisfaction of my old enemy’s death…

… until the blasted slag heap _came back to life_!

Sparkplug and the Mini-Cons gave the Autobots their damnable miracle, resurrecting my nemesis and setting him on the attack once again. Where as before he could be outmanoeuvred, this reborn Optimus Prime was unconquerable. Unrelenting. It was as if his time offline had somehow refuelled his spirit, given him insight into a… Prime Spark, or something equally ridiculous.

Optimus Prime was stronger than ever before. So, too, was my yearning for the Matrix.

A distraction saved the Autobots at Iacon. High above Earth, the Decepticons were similarly saved by an outside influence. Somehow, our conflict had woken the demon foretold in the _Covenant of Primus_ , the bogeyman used to scare protoforms to embrace religion. The mythical Chaos Bringer, Unicron, was real… and had come to Cybertron. The beast sought to feed on our world – on _my_ world, my rightful prize.

Never will I forget the first time I laid optics on the “dark god”. Barely could I comprehend the sight before me – a being so indescribably mammoth that it straddled our world on clawed feet. Its power defied belief, making my own armaments seem childish, infantile.

Unicron was terrible, it was horrific… it was _intoxicating_. Something about the beastly monstrosity called to me, even as I ran for my life from its gargantuan form. I did not understand the feeling, nor have time to study it further. Nor, however, did I deny it – instead I filed it away in my processor for later, in the event our race survived. For the first time in my existence, I questioned my survival.

_And now, months later, I question my mobility. My sanity. I have control of neither my body nor my mind… as if someone else is driving me the way one would an inanimate tank. What must I do to regain control?_

Religion, as Scorponok chose to remind me, held that only a united Transformer race could stand against the “monster” planet. That left a distasteful alliance as our only choice. Autobots and Decepticons joined as one giant armada, pummelling the “demon” with our combined arsenals. My confidence grew, as did that of my warriors. Enhanced by the Mini-Cons, it seemed victory was assured.

Yet the Mini-Cons were so much more than I had guessed. Far from being another form of Transformer life, the tiny beings were actually pieces of Unicron. By tapping their power, we Decepticons had drawn Unicron to our world – our hubris condemning our race to consumption.

We continued to attack with more conventional weaponry. When it had endured enough annoyance – when it knew our hopes had risen, ripe for the crushing – Unicron sucked up every erg of Mini-Con energy. In one action, it robbed us of our advantage and left us vulnerable to Sideways’ treachery. He stole the sabre, the blaster and the shield… and ran.

When all hope seemed lost, when the armies had fallen, when the Mini-Cons fell lifeless to the ground … I acted.

I ceded command to Scorponok – the alliance had been his idea, after all. He, Prime and the others could waste their ammunition. Alone, I followed Sideways into the very belly of beast. The traitor first placed each of the super weapons around Unicron’s central core – linking them to it the same way they had linked to Transformers – then took his place on a giant golden throne.

Suddenly it all became very clear to me. The “Chaos Bringer”, the “dark god” was nothing more than a sophisticated, enormous, Mini-Con! The “demon” of legend was a puppet dancing to the tune of an opportunistic Transformer with delusions of grandeur! The other Mini-Cons bonded to it, and it linked, through the throne, to a Transformer and served its whims!

Here, then, was the fulfilment of everything for which I had strived. I had sought the means to defend my home – here it was, writ large in fire and fury. I had sought recognition for my devotion – here stood a golden throne fit for a warrior-king. I had sought to make my home a cosmic dreadnought – here, instead, was a planet-sized weapon ripe for the taking. That feeling I’d registered upon seeing Unicron was recognition of destiny. My entire existence had been prologue for this very moment.

 _I_ was the dark god of the Covenant. _I_ was the Chaos Bringer.

I leapt out from my hiding place and opened fire, obliterating Sideways with a double-barrelled blast of pure Energon. I swept his steaming pieces out of my way and sat on the throne – my throne. The change was _instant_. I felt the energy of the Mini-Cons a thousand-fold, a rush of _control_ – influence over life and death, over the fundamental forces of the universe. Unicron’s will became my will, and my will was… to destroy the Autobots and their precious Matrix.

Only fools would worship a glowing bauble with golden handles. Fool had I been, spending so much time and effort in pursuit of a worthless trinket. The Matrix was fit only to be crushed beneath my/our heel, ground into metal shavings along with the weakling Transformers! Autobot, Decepticon, it mattered not… those who would stand against me/us would die!

If only my/our brain-dead troops had understood. If only they had not continued to fight alongside Prime, failing to realise their warrior-king had ascended. Become a _deity_. They fought and attacked, damaged my/our body more than it could heal. Drawing on the Mini-Cons was not enough… I/we needed to feed on Cybertron, to consume the flesh of my/our ancient enemy, Primus, and in doing so recover from our wounds.

_I remember… that was the last time I felt this way, like my body was operating under someone else’s commands. I was not about to destroy the world I had defended for so long – to give it over to the whims of some barely-sentient beast!_

I struggled with Unicron’s programming as the Transformers struggled with its form, our battles concluding in concert. In their combined form, Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus punctured the beast’s armour, granting passage to wave after wave of troops. Wielding Energon weapons, this armada decimated Unicron from the inside as I befuddled its processor.

Through our combined efforts, the dark god faltered and fell, defeated, relinquishing its grip on beloved Cybertron. As the weapons fire tore through the behemoth, I transformed and flew clear of the final detonation.

The Mini-Cons revived. Prime, meanwhile, knew what I had done. Somehow, he had discerned my intent and my… lapse of judgment. He could take no action, though, for Unicron’s defeat had created another problem. The final detonation brought with it a singularity, a “black hole” just beyond Cybertron. Given time, it would consume the planet just as surely as would have Unicron.

We were, effectively, back to square one.

Until Vector Prime, the gullible old fool, came to me with a solution. Cybertron, he said, was actually a giant Transformer. The planet was being of great power called Primus, the “god” who birthed us all. Our religion, he explained, was correct up to a point… Primus and Unicron were opposing forces of nature, positivity and negativity made solid.

Only Primus, said the ancient one, had the power to close the black hole and save the universe. But his transformation to robot mode had to be triggered – ignited by four “Planet Keys” scattered around the universe. They were objects of great power, he said, guarded by lost Transformer colonies on distant worlds. Ignorant of the war, he offered me a map and begged for my help. As with the Mini-Con distress beacon, I was only too happy to oblige.

With this information came understanding. In one conversation, the secrets of our race, of our origins, of _everything_ , became clear to me. It’s quite simple, really… just a matter of putting the pieces together.

“Primus” is nothing more than a semi-sentient foundry, a living forge. It is a giant Transformer that creates other Transformers. The five-faced invaders knew this somehow, I’m sure of it, and so risked everything to possess our world. Unicron is another foundry – a giant Mini-Con that manufactures other Mini-Cons, those tiny robots that work complimentary to our own systems. All that is required to operate these foundries are the proper activation devices. For Unicron it was the super weapons – the Star Sabre, the Skyboom Shield, the Requiem Blaster. For Primus, it is the “Planet Keys”.

Created at the same time, Unicron and Primus were designed to operate in tandem. But something went awry. At a point in the past, the operators of these foundries found themselves in opposition and, then, conflict. Perhaps they even fought a series of wars that, over time, became the basis of our religion. The _Covenant of Primus_ is a book of half-remembered truths distorted into myths to keep the ignorant masses in line.

My urge to transform myself… tank to dreadnought to warrior-king to deity… is a _hard-wired_ understanding of these fundamental truths. It is programmed preparation for my taking control of one of these beings, completing the broken circuit and joining all three “species” – Transformer, Mini-Con, foundry planet – as one. With Unicron denied me, Primus becomes the obvious choice for a replacement… and a fitting one, given my eons of service to its shining metallic surface.

I will _become_ Cybertron. It has only ever been a matter of time.

_Time is something I have in abundance right now, frozen as I am. These thoughts, these memories run through my databanks unbidden, against my will, even as my limbs refuse to move. I sit in my command centre as immobile as a statue, maintaining my faculties and yet unable to use them for any greater purpose._

_I demand to know: what is going on here?_

_A presence swells within my consciousness. It is inky blank, crushing, like the singularity in the skies above. It swirls and moves with pure malevolence, its intent unknown to me and yet wholly terrify. It is the reason I cannot move. Still, I am Megatron and I refuse to bow to my fears – within my own mind, I stare down the pitch darkness and ask its name._

_“Of more importance, right now, is your name and nature, little creature,” it replies, filling my processors with dread._

_“That has been the point of this exercise, of my trawling through your memories. I sought to make sure my choice of a new host body was sound._

_“I will tell you what I am _not_ , little creature. I am no mere foundry. I am a creator who, through my offspring, did create the means for my return and lay the snares for my final victory._

_“And you, little mechanoid,” – an oil chilling chuckle – “you possess the requisite amount of hubris to serve as the final piece of my plan.”_

_Something within me sinks, and I realise I have been played for the biggest fool of all. My destiny is not that of a dark god, of a Chaos Bringer. Nor is it that of a living planet, a mobile, destructive War World. I have miscalculated – badly – and robbed myself of those lofty posts._

_Despite all I have achieved, all I have sacrificed and all the pain I have endured, I am no warrior-king. My fate is to once again be a mere piece in another’s grand design._


End file.
